


l'appel du vide

by malfaisant



Category: Marvel Ultimates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:46:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfaisant/pseuds/malfaisant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you keeping me here as some kind of pet?" Greg said, sounding bored. He was on the floor, sitting back against the glass walls. It was raining outside, drab and grey and miserable for miles around. “Is this all because father never allowed us to have pets as children?”</p><p>"If I had wanted a pet, Greg, I would get a cat. Less hassle to have around, you know."</p><p>(Or Gregory Stark lives, and Tony becomes his brother's keeper far too literally.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	l'appel du vide

**Author's Note:**

> set in Ultimates-verse, and diverges from canon from the end of _avengers vs. new ultimates_. also references events from _ultimate comics: iron man_ and hickman's _ultimates_. the dubious consent warning is for the circumstances under which consent was given, but I leave it up for you to decide who it applies to.
> 
> many thanks to Rian, who beta'd this and gave me tips on how to make it as terrible as it can be, and Kiran, who gave me the idea in the first place.

_There are many stories in history, about brothers, fathers, jealousy, rivalry, envy, love, mythology, incest, fratricide. Halves of a whole._

*

“You think that’s going to stop me? Your stupid little 4.0 armor? I’ve got ten years on anything you’re packing in there. Weapons you don’t even have a name for yet. What’ve you got, Tony? Pulsar-beams? Booster jets?” Greg said, sneering.

His older brother had always been good at that.

The city of Pyongyang burned around them, replete with the cacophony of crumbling buildings and civilian screams, but all Tony could hear was a pulsing wave, followed by the ringing silence of dead technology. The EMP had taken out anything more advanced than an abacus in their five-mile radius. Gregory stood in front of him, right hand aimed at Tony, but the light at his fingers sputtered like dying fireflies, glowing brightly before fading to nothing.

The nanite fleets  in their bodies stopped dead in their tracks as the EMP coursed through them both, and Tony thought he felt his blood grow heavy, thickening.

Greg’s face contorted in anger and confusion, and the honesty of his expression surprised Tony. _Oh_. He’d nearly forgotten that look on the face of his always-composed, incorruptible brother. He hadn’t seen it since before their father died.

This was Gregory throwing a tantrum.

Greg looked at his hands in horror, before turning back to Tony. “What the hell did you do?!”

Tony smiled, which stung and pulled on the bruise on his cheek from when Greg had blasted away the faceplate of the armor. The torn metal of the helmet dug into the curve of his jaw, and he could feel the blood trickling down his neck.

Tony smiled a wide, shit-eating grin.

“That was always your problem, brother. No appreciation for the classics,” replied Tony, his voice rising in volume as he stood up from where he was kneeling in rubble. “That was an EMP that just shut down your precious nanites, you megalomanic jerk! Thor, we have fifteen seconds!”

There is a version of this scene where his twin brother dies. The lightning shatters through Greg’s body, a hundred million volts of current striking him down from the skies, and Tony’s breath catches in his throat and lodges there while he sits at Greg’s bedside, up until Greg’s burial. Some stranger will give the eulogy and Tony will visit the gravestone on their birthday every year and not bring anything. In the years following his brother’s death, sometimes Tony will catch the minute hand on the face of some clock at twenty-two past the hour, and his heart will stutter, an irregular palpitation as though to remind him of something.

But here, heaven’s divine punishment missed by an arm’s length. The lightning crashed down at Greg’s feet, knocking him backwards, and the brilliant dazzling light forced Tony to avert his eyes. For one breathless second, Tony didn’t know what had happened, didn’t know where Greg was, wait no,  _he didn’t mean that fuckisGregokayokaywhathappened_ —

Tony blinked the light out of his eyes, only to see Greg facedown on the ground, Monica kneeling on his back and holding his arms back at a painful angle. Tony released the breath he didn’t know he was holding, before walking forward, the dead weight of his unresponsive armor making each step heavier than it usually was.

Greg thrashed under Monica, but she pulled his arms back at an even steeper angle, slowly wringing his shoulders out of their sockets. He gasped in pain, but held still.

His white coat was torn and dusty, and there was a shining-red gash that cut diagonally from his temple to right cheek, forcing his right eye shut. The only thing he did now was glare at Tony with the one eye he still had open.

Greg spoke, his voice shaking with the effort to keep from shouting. “Get  _off_  me, Agent Chang. I am still Director and if you—”

Monica rolled her eyes, and twisted her grip just the slightest. Greg screamed. “Threaten me again,” she challenged.

Thor lighted down beside Tony, hammer slung back across his shoulder. “I had meant to kill him.”

The air was sharp with the smell of ozone, electrical discharge raising the hair on his arms. Tony curled his hands into fists, but only said, “No need to go overboard, darling. Greg will behave.”

“Fuck you!”

“You lost, Greg,” said Tony flatly. This was victory, maybe.

Whatever, he’d take it.

Greg growled, baring his teeth, the right side of his face painted red. He looked savage. “I’ll kill you, Tony, I swear I’ll kill you—”

Tony’s face was blank as Monica knocked Greg unconscious with a blow to the back of his head. “You were always a bad loser, brother.”

*

Two twin brothers stood in a room. Heartbreakingly young and wearing matching school uniforms, they were nearly physically identical, except for a few divergences. One was dark-haired and the other, fair-haired, older by twenty-two minutes and perhaps the slightest bit taller for it, but not so much as to be noticeable to anyone else but the two of them.

“Hey, Greg, where’s dad?”

The younger one also perhaps had eyes that were just the slightest shade bluer, but again, almost imperceptibly so.

Greg turned around to see Tony standing in the doorway, blinking big round eyes, his arms wrapped around a disproportionately large box that was obviously too heavy for him. The box was overflowing with an assortment of childhood scrap, from disassembled circuit boards to blueprints to the Captain America robot Tony had been working on for months.

Greg sighed, zipping his own suitcase closed. “You’re supposed to be getting packed, Tony.”

“I am getting packed.”

“You know dad won’t want you to take that junk with us to boarding school.”

Tony frowned, his bottom lip precariously close to a pout. “C’mon, Greg. Just help me stuff it in the moving van.”

“Why didn’t you ask Jarvis to help you?” Greg asked, taking the weight of the other end of the box even as he put on his most harried expression. They made their way across the hallway and started down the main stairs of the mansion with an ease borne out of many years of sneaking around together, in the inseparable way that siblings occupied themselves when they spent most of their childhood in an impersonally large and empty house.

“Jarvis is too busy flirting with the new chef Mum just hired—he’s straight out of some cooking school in Paris, apparently,” said Tony with a smirk. “Anyway, this isn’t junk! Like that plan right there—I found a way of making the jet propulsion system more efficient—”

“Using smaller engine cylinders with faster rotation cycles?” asked Greg. He walked in front, taking each backwards step down the staircase carefully, rolling his shoulders and tucking the box under his chin.

“Which would make peak output fall more than 12.2% below the optimum level, I know,” replied Tony excitedly, “but if we use a lighter steel alloy with the hollow body frame I designed, the hover board should still generate enough propulsive momentum to be able to get off the ground, and it wouldn’t explode this time either!”

“Tony, stop—!” Greg shouted as Tony pitched forward in his enthusiasm. They both lost balance and tripped forward, and together they fell down the last five steps of the curving staircase.

The box and its contents had tumbled down the stairs ahead of them and spilled all over the floor of the foyer. Greg landed on his back and Tony on his front, but the fall wasn’t too serious. Greg hugged his bruised knee to his chest while Tony clutched at the bump on his forehead, groaning in pain and blinking tears out of their eyes.

“This was your idea,” hissed Greg.

Tony glared at his brother. “Falling down the stairs wasn’t part of the plan!”

“And what plan was that? What were you boys doing?” a stern voice rang out.

Greg hurriedly stood up and pulled Tony to his feet as their father walked down the stairs. Howard was putting on a grey trench coat as he made his way down, each footfall ringing loud on the marble steps.

“Are you boys alright?” he asked, almost as an afterthought.

Greg kept holding his younger brother’s hand as he replied. “It’s for a project me and Tony are doing. We were moving materials to the van—”

Howard crouched down on the floor and picked up the Captain America robot, the expression on his face unreadable. “And this is a project you’re both doing together?”

“Yeah,” said Greg breathlessly. Behind him, Tony tugged on his sleeve.

“I—we were just packing stuff,” added Tony in a small voice. “Just an extra thing I was hoping to finish at boarding school—”

Howard shook his head. “Nonsense. Your tutors tell me that your academic performances have been satisfactory, but from here on you’ll be competing with your entire age group—and more importantly, you’ll be competing with each other.”

He stood up, kicked the box upright and tossed the robot in the pile. “You both should be focusing on your studies now, not this meaningless junk.”

Tony looked at the box at their feet. Greg looked up at their father.

“Are we clear, boys?” said Howard, straightening the cuffs of his suit.

“Yes, father,” said Greg.

“Yes, dad,” said Tony.

Howard appraised them both, before ruffling Tony’s hair almost affectionately. “Good. Now put this stuff back where it belongs and make sure you’re both ready in ten minutes. I’m off to an important shareholder’s meeting and can’t afford to be late. Your mother will be able to see you both off.”

Greg and Tony nodded in unison. With a shout, their father called Jarvis in to gather the contents of the box from the floor, which the aging butler did wordlessly after shuffling in out of seemingly nowhere.

Howard took one last considering look at Greg and Tony, before turning away. He walked out the front door, to the waiting black car and chauffeur.

“Nevermind about your father, boys,” said Jarvis as he stashed the blueprints and miscellaneous machine parts in the box, Greg and Tony kneeling beside him to help. “He’s very proud of your achievements, the both of you.”

Tony turned away from the front door, before shaking his head. “He forgot mother is in Nice until the end of the week.”

“Your father’s a busy man, quite a lot on his mind,” said Jarvis vaguely. Then he hefted the box up onto his arms, and said, “I’ll be taking this up to Master Tony’s room, shall I?”

Both children watched him trudge up the stairs, and he was out of sight when Greg spoke. “We can always redraft plans.”

“Yeah,” replied Tony blankly.

Greg paused, looking at his brother, before taking something out of his pocket. “Here.”

Tony stared bemusedly at the Cap robot Greg offered. “Greg—”

“Like I said, we can just make new plans. We can make new plans and see who has the better one. And you can use Cap to help you,” said Greg, smirking. “You need all the help you can get anyway.”

Tony looked up at Greg and grinned. “My hover board’s going to fly circles around yours.”

Two twin brothers talked about flight capacity and engine efficiency maximization as they headed out the door of their childhood mansion. The younger one had dark-hair, and was the slightest bit shorter in height, but he still wrapped an arm around his older brother’s shoulder.

*

_History is stories in stories in stories, myths and legends and half-forgotten memories. All are cautionary tales._

_*_

The floors of the Triskelion clanged loudly as Tony walked its corridors, Nick Fury walking alongside him. Next to Tony, whose armor was battered to hell and back, Fury was practically unscratched aside from a small bruise on his face.

“The bastard gave me this, you know,” he said, when he caught Tony looking at him.

Tony raised an eyebrow, and made a vague gesture to his face. “I think I know what my brother did.”

“So you’ll understand if I say I can’t grant your request—”

“A proposition, Nick darling—”

“Fine. Your  _proposition_ regarding Gregory Stark’s detention,” said Fury. “We need to do something about him. He’s too dangerous, and you’re not exactly impartial to his situation.”

The hard glint in Tony’s eyes belied his nonchalant smile. “I know exactly how dangerous he is, which is why I’m telling you to leave him to  _me_.”

“And then what? What do I do with the people screaming for his head on a plate? You have to realise this is an international incident, not just some personal feud you can deal with on your own, Stark.”

They came to a stop in front of Gregory’s cell, and Tony took off the broken armor helmet and his gauntlets. He gingerly touched the cut on his jaw, and looked at the blood staining his fingers.

“He’s family, Nick.”

The holding cell was round and largely empty. Behind the glass, Gregory was unconscious on the center of the floor, lying on his side, his hands restrained behind his back with plastic zip ties. In nondescript white clothes and half his face covered in bandages, he looked more like a hospital patient than a prisoner.

“He’s guilty of conspiracy and treason against the United States government, Tony. He’s a criminal and needs to be punished,” Fury replied.

“Yes, and I’m  _offering_  to do the punishing. Last I checked, Stark Global Solutions’ collective net worth was somewhere in the realm of $67.9 billion dollars.” Tony looked at Fury, the mask of charming businessman falling easily in place. "Leave him to me, and you can freeze his accounts, seize his assets as compensation for the damage he’s caused and build ten new triskelions with his money or whatever. You can put him to trial in front of The Hague, but I know him better than anyone, and this is the worst thing you can do to him.”

“And you’re offering to do this out of the goodness of your heart, aren’t you?”

“Why, Nick,” Tony said, slick and unaffected, “where’s your sense of democracy? I’m a firm believer in the rehabilitative powers of our wonderful justice system.”

Fury crossed his arms across his chest. “He’s staying in SHIELD custody.”

Tony scoffed, and dropped all pretense of pleasantry with a sneer. “You’ve said it yourself. He’s as smart and resourceful as me and infinitely more ruthless. He’ll cut through any security you put him in with ease.”

“We’ve had practice keeping people in cages.”

“I give it three months before he escapes, tops. I’m the only one who can build a prison that can keep him and you know it. And I won’t build one for you, unless they’re on my terms.”

“We can always just kill him right now and be done with him,” Fury snapped.

Tony stared at Fury, his nails digging hard into his palms as he spoke, his voice level and full of deathly calm. “You kill him and you lose me, Fury. If he dies, I will crush you, your Avengers, your Ultimates, whatever other pet superhero team you have. Greg dies and I burn SHIELD to the fucking ground.”

He turned away, and put his hand up to the glass, smearing blood on the surface. “But it’s alright. You won’t kill him. I won’t  _let_  you kill him. I’ll save him, and then you’ll have to worry about two Starks instead of one.”

Fury remained silent, and Tony could feel his one eye boring its stare into the back of his head. “Fine. Take him. Get contracts out of him to keep the DoD happy. But we monitor his condition. We get to confirm he’s contained. ‘Cause he’s not just your brother, Stark. He almost brought down all of western civilization, and you realise he did all of it just to show you up, right?”

When Tony just looked blankly at him, Fury let out a restrained sigh. “You join the Ultimates and become one of America’s superheroes, so of course he has to be the savior of the whole goddamn world.”

“Gregory has a talent for escalating things,” said Tony flatly, pulling a chair from the side of the room and placing it in front of the cell. He sat down, the armor making him slightly clumsy.

Fury snorted. “And you have a talent for understatement. Guess you Starks had to balance out somehow.”

“Yes, understatement. I’m quite fond of restraint in these sort of things. Or restraints in general.”

Fury ignored Tony’s weak attempt at crudity. “I was the last person he spoke to before he went to Pyongyang. Did you know what he said?”

Tony looked at him expectantly.

“He set off to kill you, Tony. So think on what he’d do if you were in that cell instead of him.”

Fury turned and left the room without waiting for an answer. Tony didn’t watch him leave, only leaned forward in his chair, steepling his fingers, and thought best of how to keep his brother safe. 

*

Two twin brothers stood across from each other, both dressed in white from head to toe, each with a sword in hand, carefully aimed at each other's chest.

A buzzer blared loudly.

_Parry four, quarte; blade up and to the inside, wrist supinated. The point is higher than the hand._

With a quick step, Tony immediately advanced forward until he was just in Greg's range and lunged, sword arm extending to land the point on his torso. A flick of Greg's sword intercepted the attack halfway, deflecting the blade so that it hit on the top of his shoulder instead. Greg's own foil landed squarely on Tony's sternum, knocking him slightly out of breath even through the chest guard.

"Halt!"

The buzzer rang again. The lights on the score machine blinked red and green. Both Greg and Tony lowered their swords, raised their masks, and looked expectantly at the sandy-haired boy two years their senior, standing just to the side of the markers on the floor delineating the piste.

Tiberius Stone paused his stopwatch. "Attack from the right is parried, counter-riposte from the left is good—the score is three to four," he said.

Tony made a face. "Tyyyy."

"It was his right of way, Tony." Tiberius shrugged, while Greg only gave an arrogant ‘hmmph.’

Tony brushed his sweat-drenched hair from his forehead, his voice perilously close to a whine. "That was the measliest parry I've ever seen."

"No need to get nasty," said Tiberius, a small smile on his face. "You leave your inside wide-open because your brother's left-handed, so watch out."

Tony stuck his tongue out, before turning around and walking back to his end of the strip. Greg walked to his own end, albeit with a smirk on his face.

"Come now, little brother. You just don't have the finesse for foil. Accept defeat with as much grace as you can pretend without hurting yourself."

"If only you can take your own advice, Gregory."

"You fence like a sabreur," said Greg as he and Tony lowered their masks.

"Well, mon frère, that's cause I _am_ a sabreur."

"We are playing foil, little brother, but perhaps I am overestimating your powers of observation?"

Tony adjusted his grip on his sword, rotating his wrist just the slightest. "Three-four, Greg, You need one more touch before you're allowed to be this insufferable. I guess you can't help it though."

Greg leaned slightly forward, almost looming, his sword arm bent at the elbow and tucked against his chest. "I'll just stand here and let your carelessness work for me."

"Glad to see you guys take Saturday practice so seriously," said Tiberius, an eyebrow raised and a devious smile on his face.

"Well, that's because dearest brother has a broken foil up his—"

"Prêt, en garde," Tiberius interrupted. "Allez."

On the strip, the contrast between the two fencers was almost hilariously stark. Tony's energetic gait was erratic and unpredictable as he jumped back and forth on the balls of his feet, advancing and retreating with no discernible pattern to his stance. Gregory, on the other hand, was almost completely still, the lines of his body deadly and precise as he stalked forward in an unmistakable impression of a predatory cat, or perhaps a snake—it was the unsettling notion that he was always just about to strike at any moment.

Tony's breaths were shallow and controlled, and each intake of air sounded preternaturally loud beneath the mask. He advanced right into Greg's space, just as before, but in this engagement, Tony was certain his brother had grown complacent. Careless, was he?

_Parry nine, neuvieme; blade behind the back, pointing down._

A sharp feint to his right brought out Greg's parry, just as intended. Tony jumped a step backward, back foot first, before taking a quick step forward and lunging again. He extended his arm, lightning-fast , and Greg did the same, his sword parallel to Tony's blade, but it caught on the guard of Tony's sword. Tony's sword thrust past the side of Greg's face, before a backwards flick of his wrist landed the tip of the thin metal just barely on Greg's left shoulder blade. The buzzer rang, the lights blinking red and white this time.

"Halt! Compound attack from the right is good, the score is four-four," said Tiberius. He crossed his hands on his hips and smirked at Tony, who responded with an arrogant salute of his fingers.

"Thanks, ref!" said Tony with a wide grin.

"Stone," said Greg, raising his mask and stalking forward to the center of the piste where Tiberius stood. "That was _my_ counter off-target."

Tiberius curled his mouth thoughtfully. "Tony's counter-time took priority before yours hit off-target. The score's four-four, Stark."

Gregory held Tiberius' unrepentant gaze, but turned around and walked back to his end of the strip with nothing more than an off-hand "tche" in response. He lowered his mask without a single taunt directed at Tony. For a moment, Tony was too taken aback by the vehemence of his brother's expression to react. He narrowed eyes, frowning, and went to his end of the strip.

"Prêt, en garde."

Both fencers raised their sword hands. Gregory stood to position, right arm behind his back, his blade poised directly at Tony's throat.

Tony took a deep breath through his mouth, and blinked the sweat out of his eyelashes. Greg always took things too seriously, always underestimated him, and if that was the predisposition he was stuck with by virtue of being older, Greg could fucking keep his twenty-two minutes.

Tony held his blade in his hand, his wrist slack. Greg needed to lose every now and then, for his own good.

"Allez."

_Flèche (lit. "arrow"); an attack in which the aggressor leaps off his leading foot, attempts to make the hit, and then passes the opponent at a run._

At the lilt of Tiberius' perfect French, Tony gave a shout and sprang forward in a flurry of movement, coming at Greg at a run, his arm extended in front of him, the line from his shoulder to the tip of blade completely straight and aimed at Gregory's heart. Greg retreated back several steps, extending his arm to parry, but Tony had charged at him too fast, his momentum having pulled him forward to pass Greg, even after the blade hit on side of Greg's ribs.

The two brothers stood back to back, the sound of the buzzer ringing in their ears. The lights blinked only one red light this time.

"Attack on the right is good, five-four. Bout."

Tony unmasked,turned around to looked Greg in the eye, and offered out his hand. "Five-four, Greg," Tony said.

At Greg's murderous glare, any inclination he had to celebrate was replaced instead by confused but angry defiance. Tony should be gloating, arrogance rightfully earned in victory, but instead he felt cagey, as though his brother was a time bomb to be handled delicately.

Greg looked at Tony's hand and then, for some reason, at Tiberius, who only looked right back, unfazed. But then Greg said nothing, only taking a deep breath of air before unclipping the cord connecting his uniform to the electronic scoring equipment behind him, and walked off the strip in long angry strides without ever shaking Tony's hand.

"Wait, Greg!" Tony held his helmet under one arm as he clumsily tried to unclip his equipment with the same hand still holding his sword. Greg gave no indication that he had heard Tony call after him, and was out of the otherwise empty gym atrium by the time Ty came forward and unclipped Tony himself.

"Geez, what's gotten into him?" said Tony, his effort at sounding righteously angry betrayed by the confusion and worry in his voice.

Tiberius shrugged. "Well, you did beat him at his own weapon."

"It's _one_ bout. I'm allowed to win sometimes."

"You really can't see why Greg doesn't want to lose to you?"

"But why did he just walk out instead of beating me in a rematch?" Tony said. "Why does he hate me so much?"

"Oh, you know how brothers can be," spoke Tiberius, his tone understanding. He wrapped an arm around Tony's shoulder. "But he's fine, Tony. What's a little sibling rivalry between brothers, after all?"

Ty was all dishwater blonde hair and effortless cool, and Tony couldn't figure out why Greg hated Ty so much either.

*

_In many cultures, the birth of twins is often considered an omen. Opposites, mirrors, the two ends of a compass. Good and evil, black and white, light and shadow._

_Two parts of the same whole before they were split in half. Born broken and incomplete._

*

The blank glass walls of the penthouse were tinted one-way, and most times Tony felt as though he were looking down at the rest of the world through a lens, being so far above it that the sense of distance was inescapable. It's an altogether different feeling than when he flied in the armor, liberation that wasn't tainted by any unwanted connotations, but up in the penthouse, up in the tower above the city, martini glass in hand, the isolation was suffocating, as if there were no oxygen this high up where he lived.

Behind him was the sound of footsteps as someone came in from the hallway, bare feet on the cold marble floor of the living room. Tony downed the rest of his drink in one gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, before turning around.

Their eyes met, and Greg had a hand up to his neck. He ran his fingers along the wide black band that circled around his throat like a collar (it _was_ a collar), matching the ones around his wrists and his ankles, but the metal was completely smooth, no catch of a hinge, or lock, or even a ridge where it must've been welded together.

"The material was molded to fit you so you could never take it off. Self-replicating nanites, of course," said Tony, a reluctant smile on his face.

Greg didn't say anything, only moved his fingertips to trace the scar on his face that crept under the bandage over his right eye. With the scar, looking at his brother was no longer like looking at a mirror with inverted colors.

Tony walked to the bar to refill his glass, bypassing the cocktail shaker and pouring the gin straight from the bottle. Greg spread his hands open, trying to will the white light to his fingertips, but nothing happened.

"What have you done to me?" Greg's one open eye was bloodshot. His voice was hoarse from disuse.

"I modified the nanites in your blood," Tony replied, his voice flat. "You controlled them with your brainwaves, so they did whatever was within their capabilities that you commanded them to. I simply changed them so they listen to me instead of you."

Greg crossed his arms across his chest, looking defiantly at Tony. "What do you hope to achieve by this, Tony? I'll escape sooner or later, probably by killing you—so why not just let SHIELD throw me in some cell and let me be their problem?"

Tony had sent for Greg's truly ridiculous wardrobe before he was transferred to his custody, so Greg was wearing his own clothes: a loose white button-down and pale grey slacks. They looked bright and sharp next to the deep black bands keeping him prisoner.

Tony crossed the room to the sofa, sat down, and set his drink on the glass coffee table. He spread his arms on the back of the sofa, resting his left ankle on his knee, but even with the carefully cultivated air of nonchalance—sprawled on the couch in just a black t-shirt and boxers, a robe loosely tied around his waist—he was tense and uneasy. He looked down on the floor, carefully avoiding Gregory's eyes.

"The bands around your neck, wrists, and ankles are sensors, monitoring everything you do and everywhere you go. And of course, you're only allowed to certain places, because you're sorta under arrest."

"Tony, look at me."

"If you set off any perimeter limits, or if the sensors detect any tampering with the equipment, the nanites will set out a high-frequency signal that will paralyse your muscles. It'll also let me know, of course, because I monitor your condition at all times."

"Look at me, you coward," Greg hissed.

Tony looked up and stared at him. He smiled weakly, and the circles under his dull blue eyes were dark. "Natasha got rid of her nanites by cutting her wrists and bleeding them out. But you can't do that with these. The nanites will make your wounds coagulate almost instantaneously, so on the plus side, you'll never die of blood loss."

"How generous of you," said Greg, expression wholly unimpressed. "But I don't plan to stay here any longer than I need to, so don't stop me."

"Don't, Greg."

"I'm not your prisone—"

He started to speak, but Tony waved his hand, and with that gesture, Greg was forced to floor on his arms and knees. Every muscle should be screaming under an invisible weight, feeling as though it were being torn apart strand by strand. It should be difficult to even get air into his lungs, the nanites simulating an unbelievable crushing pressure on every inch of him, as though he were underwater.

As suddenly as it started, the sensation would stop. Greg took a pained gasp of air as he collapsed on his back, and looked up at Tony, his eyes twisted in fury. Tony idly thought that was such a familiar expression on him, nowadays.

Tony's hands had curled into fists when Gregory started thrashing, but fortunately his brother had been in too much pain to notice.

"Just don't," Tony spoke after a silence.

"What have you done to me?!" Greg roared.

"You need to lose sometimes, brother," Tony said.

 _I need you to see what I'm willing to do to save you_ , he didn't say.

_I need to make you understand._

_I need you to stay_.

*

SHIELD checked in with them regularly, scheduled reports to ascertain that they were both still alive. Between the hideously fractured mess that constituted the international political climate, dropping stock prices, and his duty as de-facto leader of the Ultimates—Monica and Fury were busy running SHIELD, Hawkeye was doing god knows what in the Southeast Asian Republic, and Thor was, well, busy being Thor, Tony was spread rather thin amongst his myriad responsibilities.

One of which now included taking care of his brother.

So Tony had his hands full, but Greg was nothing if not inconsiderate, and in the month that had passed since the start of his confinement in Tony's penthouse, the nanite fleet told him that Greg had already made five different escape attempts, all involving some variety of disabling the bands around his wrists and ankles, or testing the limits of the perimeter wards.

The first five had been evenly spaced out, but there was an intermission between the fifth and sixth, when Greg had waited a full two weeks before he’d tried again.

In his sixth escape attempt, Greg had tried to hack into the workshop, only to have the nanites stop him in his tracks, shocks of current flowing through his body, bringing him to his knees until Tony had found him in front of the elevator.

Tony had put a hand to his temple, and when he spoke his voice was heavy with what pretended to be exasperation. "Why do you never listen to me?"

Greg had done away with the bandage, but the scar was still not fully healed, still garish and red on his face. He looked up at Tony, and snarled, "Let me go or kill me."

"No," said Tony.

Greg had never dealt well with even the slightest loss of control. What Tony was doing to him was nothing short of the worst punishment he could devise. It was crude and savagely Pavlovian, but there were no alternatives, or at least none that Tony could tolerate.

But punishment was not the point. Greg would never believe him, though.

It was forced coexistence, a fragile purgatory that Tony had set up, and he was going to make this work if it killed him.

The seventh escape attempt happened just a day after the sixth, where Greg tried to oblige him exactly that…which, in Tony's honest opinion, was far longer than he expected him to hold out. He had thought that as soon as Greg realised that he couldn't do anything about the cuffs, he'd go straight to the point and kill Tony.

So the seventh time Greg tried to escape, he tried to bash Tony's head in with a paperweight while his back was turned.

He failed, of course, like Tony told him he would, his arm raised above his head, a marble paperweight in his fist with _Stark Industries_ embossed across it. The words would have imprinted into the back of Tony's skull had the blow connected, but before Greg could even complete the swing of his arm, the nanites in his blood had paralysed him, his muscles locking in place. The paperweight fell out of his hand with a thud, and Greg followed soon after, but this time the nanites had him screaming in pain, his body convulsing.

This response was an automatic failsafe Tony had installed, for the instances when he couldn't rely on his reaction time to stop Greg. Tony's eyes widened as he turned around, taking in the image of Greg on the floor as he curled in on himself, his hands shaking. But Greg met Tony's gaze straight on, the hatred in his eyes unwavering even as he screamed his lungs hoarse.

"Please just listen to me," Tony said, his voice broken as his nerves sang in sympathy, doing nothing to dissuade the notion that he could feel everything Greg felt by virtue of their shared blood.

Gregory spoke through gritted teeth, "I'm not to be kept here like a dog, Tony!"

Tony's hands curled into fists. "Just listen, Greg!"

Greg continued to scream.

But retribution was not the point.

How could he make Greg believe that?

The seventh time Greg tried to escape, the programming in his blood had him convulsing in pain for hours, writhing, clutching at the bands around his wrists, and Tony had never wished harder for his brother's casual cruelty.

*

_There is one story of possible relevance. The myth of Castor and Pollux, the two brothers who shared a bond so strong that when Castor died of a spear through his heart, Pollux gave up half of his immortality to join him. Their bodies are cast to the sky, and their stars, the Discoursi, are visible for half the year. The other half, they disappear across the horizon as they descend into Hades._

_Okay,_ probably _not so relevant after all._

*

The holographic display from the gauntlet on his wrist was a small topographic map. On the corner of the screen was the time in UTC+03:30, next to bold, blinking words—Code: yellow.

In his ear, Monica's cool voice spoke. "The fleet is in position, Tony."

"I don't understand why you do not let SHIELD take him as prisoner. You have the technology to keep him subdued. There is no need to keep him in your own house," Thor said to him. He and Tony stood next to each other on the deck of the helicarrier, hovering above New York City.

Tony was never on the ground anymore, nowadays, always teetering on the edge, giving way to several thousand feet of empty air and a long fall to the earth. He refused to take it as anything more than overwrought symbolism.

Tony closed the gauntlet display, and brought up his other hand to look at the watch on his wrist. "I don't think I have to explain to you of all people the concept of recalcitrant brothers."

Thor moved his hammer from where it rested from his shoulders to the ground. "Loki is banished to the realm of the dead, under the supervision of Hela—he shall not be escaping anytime soon."

Tony didn't look up from his watch, tracking the second hand as it continued to tick, tick, tick. "Thirty seconds. Wasn't he imprisoned inside your giant tree or something before that? Remember how that turned out?" he said, with more spite than he intended colouring his tone. "Twenty-two seconds."

"I've no doubt my brother will make his escape sometime in the far future, but I will be ready for whatever malice he concocts when he does so," replied Thor, only concern in his voice. "But can the same be said for you?”

"Yeah, I'm good."

"What you're doing is akin to wearing a serpent around your neck, trusting it not to turn on you."

"Ten seconds. Greg's under control, Thor. He can't kill me even if he wanted to."

Thor held the hammer in front of him like a sword. "A snake can kill by means other than its poison."

The second hand ticks to zero, and everything vanishes in a blinding flash of blue light as Thor used Mjolnir to teleport the helicarrier fleet from New York to the city limits of Tehran. They were to help with damage control in the wake of a newly democratic Iran.

Tony turned to go to the lower decks where he kept his armor, before Thor grabbed him by the shoulder. His voice was solemn, and Tony was struck by its palpable weariness and age. "Even with its mouth sewn shut, the serpent will tighten its hold until you can no longer breathe."

Without waiting for Tony's reply, Thor jumped off the edge of the helicarrier, summoning lightning in his wake.

The latest impending version of the end of the world allowed Tony to put Greg out of mind for a couple of hours.

*

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.

Birthdays came and went, and with each candle that got added to the top of their cake, Tony felt the gulf between him and his brother widening, until it felt as though it would swallow the both of them entirely. Resentment and helplessness made him dig his nails into his palms as he saw less and less of Gregory except for his retreating back, and Tony was all too tempted to just throw a fucking socket wrench at the back of his smug head.

Tony wanted to say his older brother became unrecognizable, but he knew those eyes very well. They were harsh and cold and the same white-blue as ice floes, but Tony wasn't always used to their stare being directed at him.

(Or was he wrong, and he’d just been too naive to notice? Tony couldn't decide which was the worse option.)

There was an unshakeable sense of urgency telling him to grab hold of something before it was too late, but Tony knew that deadline had passed quite some time ago.

So Tony and Greg both graduated high school at sixteen, after which Greg left without saying goodbye and went to England. Tony couldn't even pretend that the whole thing didn't feel like his brother abandoning him.

(The rope was slipping out of his hands, the friction burning the skin off his palms to the white gleam of bone.)

Greg attended Cambridge and got a handful of doctorates for his trouble, collected accolades and enemies the way other people collected stamps. He wrote their father every month, long letters in his terse handwriting, cursory greetings, news, asking about Howard, about Maria, about the company. If his letters were the only record that the Stark name ever existed, one would never guess that Gregory Stark ever had a brother.

Tony ignored it, and threw himself into his studies, because two could play at this game. If his stupid brother wanted time and an ocean between them, he wasn’t going to give Greg the satisfaction of chasing after him.

Sometimes the whole thing made Tony think of his father, wearing a tophat and showman’s clothes, beckoning to some unseen audience— _come see the amazing wonder twins,_ he’d say. _Step right up and watch them revolutionise whatever field they apply their ridiculous wealth and intellect to, all at the simple expense of any meaningful interpersonal relationships they might and could have had._ Cue applause and laughter.

Tony was twenty-one when white shoes appeared beside where he was underneath a  car, on his back and up to his elbows in grease.

"Don't you ever get tired having no ambition?" said the voice he hadn't heard in years.

Tony made sure to clang the wrench extra loudly against the engine, hoping the noises would drown out the familiar voice enough so that he could pass it off as white noise, just the engine of one of his cars backfiring and leaving a ringing in his ears.

A foot lodged itself onto the bottom of the mechanic's crawler Tony was lying on and wheeled him out from under the car. Tony looked straight up at Greg, glaring through the thick goggles he had over his face.

Tony sat up, resting back on one hand as he put on his best sneer and pushed the goggles up to his forehead. His eyes were ringed with the black of grease and smoke stains. "Come to grace us with your presence, Doctor Stark?"

The garage was small and uncharacteristically humble, in hilarious contrast with its owner. Greg took a cursory look of the workshop, disdain firmly in place. He didn't look all that different in the years that had passed, which Tony found surprising. Perhaps he was hoping when Greg returned one day, he would look...changed, just the smallest evidence that distance was a burden they both had to carry.

But it was the same sharp gaze, the same brittle eyes as Tony remembered.

It was a good thing disdain worked so well on Gregory’s face, as it seemed to be stuck on that one setting. Gregory disinterestedly leafed through a bunch of old blueprints and drawings on the table, _JT Technologies_ stamped on the corners. A grease-stained MIT class ring was sitting on the corner of the workshop bench.

"As a matter of fact. Anthony,” Greg said with a nod, as if they hadn’t been ignoring each other’s existence for five years. His coat tucked in one arm, his other hand in his pocket, Greg’s fondness for white seemed to have reached new heights in the years since he left.

Tony stood up, throwing his goggles on the toolbox before leaning back on the edge of the hood of the car. "Why are you here, Greg?"

"Father sent me.”

"I'm not returning to SI," said Tony. "I was pretty clear on that."

"You're not giving up the company for distractions."

"And _yet_ it's not my problem, Greg. In fact, it’s your problem now." Tony smiled, crossing his arms. “Or did father forget he had a spare?”

That got a twitch out of Greg—nice to know he hadn’t yet lost his touch despite being tragically out of practice. Greg set his shoulders back and looked Tony in the eye as he tried a different tactic. “Was this Josey Gardner really the best you can do?"

Despite the years of separation, the long interim in which he hadn’t seen or heard from Greg, Tony found him surprisingly easy to read. “Your attempts at goading me are pathetic, Greg.”

“Well, far be it for me to malign the dead. Let me guess—you think her death is your fault.”

“How much of this did you script with father?” Tony asked, sneering. “He programmed you so well didn’t he? Falling in line to follow orders like one of his machines.”

“And your short-sighted impertinence is all that much better? I thought this childishness would be beneath even you.”

Years apart, and it only took them moments to fall back into this, a volley of biting words intended to cut as deeply as possible, with that specific viciousness reserved just for family. “Childish? Because I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to feel human, Greg? “

"Don’t be so maudlin. Do you fancy yourself heartbroken, little brother?"

"I'm surprised you know the concept at all. Aren't you supposed to be above such _maudlin_?" He spat, throwing Greg’s words back at him.

"Take dad's offer," Greg replied. “Stop sulking and grow up.”

Tony slammed a hand down on the workshop bench, rattling the tools, a screwdriver falling to the floor with an audible clang. "Why does _any_ of this matter to you? You leave and I don’t see you for five fucking years and now you think I should listen to you?!”

“Go back to New York and forget about Gardner.” Greg’s face was blank except for its usual disdain, but there was something underneath it that Tony tried to decipher, some thinly veiled anger in his tightly clenched fists.

It dawned on Tony. Greg was angry because he didn't beat Tony on his own terms.

“You're angry that he wants me to inherit the company and I turned it down?" Tony said in a small voice. "Isn't that what you want?"

Greg’s eyes widened, and he turned his face away. “The company is mine by _right_. It’s not some hand-me-down you’re turning over out of some misguided sense of magnanimity.”

Tony stabbed a grease-stained finger on Greg’s chest accusingly, his teeth bared. “And now it’s yours, you vindictive bastard! Why can’t you just take it and leave? Why d’you have to come back?”

Greg braced his hands on Tony’s shoulders and pushed him away. “Five years I haven’t seen you and you haven’t grown up one bit! You have obligations to this bloody family—“

“Don’t talk to me about responsibility when you won’t take the company ‘cause you’re too fucking _proud_ —“

Greg struck Tony with the back of his hand mid-sentence, his face twisted in an expression of outrage and pure vitriol. It was more out of surprise than anything that Tony was speechless, silent in the immediate aftermath, as he brought a hand up to his reddened cheek.

Tony swiped at the blood at the corner of his mouth with his thumb, before he grit his teeth and smiled. He could see from the way Greg’s eyes widened that the punch he retaliated with was unexpected, as if the possibility that his little brother could physically hurt him back had never occurred to him.

Well, it was the least Tony could do to return the favor.

Pain bloomed in his hand as the knuckles of his right fist caught Greg on the jaw, hurling him back to crash against the hood of the car. Before Greg could catch his breath, Tony was already in front of him, hands twisted in the front of his collar, elbows digging into his sides.

“Why d’you come back, Greg?” hissed Tony. The beginnings of what promised to be a truly spectacular bruise was flowering on Greg’s jaw, a mottled purple against his pale fluster and blond stubble.

“Father. Sent. Me.” Greg spat each word with venom, and he brought his hands up to curl around Tony’s wrists. “Did you think I asked for this? Did you think I wanted to see my pathetic little br—“

Greg’s lips were chapped from the cold outside, but Tony barely registered it, too busy crushing the words against his twin brother’s mouth. This was his real response, retaliatory fire, the one game he’d never allow Greg to beat him at. There was a part of his brain that said this had never been one of their games, that he should stop, but it was buried under the realization of Greg kissing back, without a hint of gentility. It was too much teeth and not enough air as they explored each other’s mouths, blunt nails digging into each other’s skin as they pulled each other impossibly close.

They pulled away moments later with bruised, bleeding lips of matching hues.

"You used to listen more often," said Greg, wiping the blood away with his arm, staining the sleeve red.

Tony spat the blood out of his mouth on the ground between them. "Yeah, well, you used to not be such an asshole."

Greg straightened his collar, the lapels of his shirt, rubbing Tony's handprints off his clothes. Tony smirked as his fingers came away dark, stained with grease. Greg’s clothes were smudged with black, in his hair where Tony had grabbed a fistful of it to hold him in the kiss, on his face and neck, on his hands.

Greg didn't respond, only closed his eyes, before opening them again in a cold, impassive glare.

"Go home. Listen to father," said Gregory, before turning his back to leave the room.

Tony wouldn't see him again until after their father died.

*

_There is another story, of the twin sons of the god of war, brothers who grow up amongst monsters and wolves, brothers who build the greatest city in history as a monument to their father. They were twins, brothers, and in the end they fought, tearing at each other with the teeth and claws they inherited from the she-wolf that raised them._

_No one remembers Remus, no one mourns him (except, perhaps, his brother)._

_This, Tony thought, was more their style._

*

At this height, even the tower's thick panes of glass rattled ominously against the cold storm winds. Tony's penthouse had always been sparsely furnished, a minimalism that clashed with his penchant for excess, but even at his most hedonistic Tony always believed in function over form. He was an engineer, for god's sake.

The point was that it was barely a hardship to make sure there was nothing that Greg could make a weapon out of in the main living areas of the penthouse.

Not that Greg was allowed anywhere near the lab or workshop. The bands around his wrist and ankles made sure of that.

Tony came into the living room and sprawled on his back across the length of the couch, his head close to hanging off the edge of the cushion. There were grease stains on his face and shirt and loose jeans, his feet bare.

"Are you keeping me here as some kind of pet?" Greg said, sounding bored. He was on the floor, sitting back against the glass walls. It was raining outside, drab and grey and miserable for miles around. His legs were outstretched and crossed at the ankles, and his hands were fiddling with a tablet (which was locked and monitored by Tony, of course). “Is this all because father never allowed us to have pets as children?”

"If I had wanted a pet, Greg, I would get a cat. Less hassle to have around, you know."

"I'm bored."

"You refused to work on the contracts they offered you."

"After they seized all my assets? Unlike you, I am not SHIELD's dancing monkey. Push some button and I'll shit out military contracts."

It wasn’t like Greg to be so crude. Tony sat up on his elbows to look at him—he was in his usual white ensemble, and Tony wondered if his brother might wash out against the pale grey backdrop of rain. He wondered if he should be worried.

Greg gave no sign that he acknowledged Tony’s attention, and continued doing whatever he was doing on the tablet. Tony blinked and accessed the nanites in his blood for a status report. Information flickered behind his eyes as the nanofleet streamed the data directly to his brain, relaying the contents of Greg’s tablet.

The only program running was a simple text editor. Greg was typing something in an unknown code, most likely one he devised himself, as the nanites would immediately flag any automated encryption as potentially harmful.

Tony scanned the code, trying to derive any sort of logic to the nonsensical symbols, before he gave it up as a lost cause. He blinked the images away and shook his head, and opened his eyes to see Greg looking at him, his expression coldly amused.

Well, it’s not as if Greg didn’t know Tony was watching his every move. “What are you working on?”

“My next escape attempt,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Unless you’ve revised your position and have decided to let me go after all.”

Tony shook his head ruefully, as though that had ever been an option. “Not a chance, Greg.”

“Then we don’t have any more to discuss on the matter.”

Tony returned to lying on his back on the sofa, blinking at the grey ceiling. It was a contemplative silence, a heavy pause in which Greg was obviously anticipating his reply.

It was just like Greg to keep forcing his hand, even at the expense of his own well-being.

When Tony finally spoke, he sat up and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. His expression was calculating, a steely glint in his eye. “Let’s play chess,” he said in an even voice, unnaturally loud against the white noise of rain pattering on the windows.

Greg looked up and arched an eyebrow, the one that had a scar running through it. “More games, brother?”

“It’s all a game.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“The satisfaction of beating me? It seems like sufficient motivation for everything else you do.” Tony shrugged, indifferent.

If the words affected Greg any, it didn’t show. “And what’s in it for you?”

Tony spread his arms, palms upward. “Why, Greg, do I need any incentive aside from wanting to be a gracious host? You said you were bored, and so I wish to provide entertainment.”

“So _now_ you care for my needs? Where was this concern when you were shredding my nerve endings mere days ago?” Greg replied coldly. The lazy smile on Tony’s face vanished.

“Psychosomatic pain simulators, Greg. Artificial signals to your brain, no actual physical damage," Tony replied in his most pedantic voice, linking his fingers over his chest. "But if you really want to play for points, I have a proposal: the prospect of my humiliation in defeat and proving yourself the superior intellect, should you prove victorious, versus your agreement to...delay your next escape attempt for, say, two weeks, if I win.”

“I don’t need reassurance on that front, brother,” was Greg’s reply, but set the tablet aside anyway, and walked to the couch.

The air between them was charged, crackling with static, always burdened and weighed down by too many things left unspoken, but in this case, at least, there was an open challenge. Intentions were honest and straightforward, or as much as they could afford to be in a relationship as fucked up as theirs.

Greg stood in front of Tony. Then he held Tony’s chin in a firm grip, tilting his face upward. His thumb swiped at the smudge of grease on his jaw, right at the line of his bottom lip. There was nothing innocent about the gesture, nothing unintentional, but Tony met his brother’s stare, the challenge standing clear and unwavering.

A slow grin crept on Tony’s face. “I suppose we can deliberate on other means of collecting on a win, dear brother.”

Greg held Tony’s jaw for several more seconds, before he turned away with an impatient grunt, hand dropping to his side. “Fine. I take white.”

A wave of a hand had Jarvis come in moments later with the chess set, along with a spindly-legged table and two chairs. The board was made of thick frosted glass, and the pieces gleamed bright and polished, swirling marble sculptures of creamy whites and slate grey and black. Tony sat back in his chair, weighed the black queen in his hand thoughtfully, before carefully arranging the pieces on the board.

Greg took the white pawn and moved it to e4. Tony met it head-on.

They had played chess before, because they had indulged in pretty much every vaguely competitive pastime as children, but still...it had been years since they played against each other, which must be why Tony was so surprised at how familiar it all felt. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t have been. Was there even anything between the two of them that hadn’t been corrupted by sibling rivalry?

The next few moments was occupied only by the clink of marble on glass as Greg and Tony made their opening moves. Tony moved another pawn forward, and Greg took a quick glance around the board.

“Latvian Gambit, Tony?” said Greg, his lips curling around a sneer. “You never could resist showing off.”

“Why, impressed?”

“Jackass,” said Greg, as he took Tony’s proffered pawn with his king’s knight, starting the game in earnest.

The rest of the match was silent except for the sound of chess pieces being manoeuvred into position. Greg was a meticulous player, ruthless and unrelenting, while Tony was fond of risky strategies that were either brilliant or completely crazy, though he’d insist it was both.

Greg leaned forward in his chair, resting his chin on one hand, fingers splayed over the side of his face. The game gave Tony an opportunity for open scrutiny, look at the small tics and the distracted, yet not wholly unguarded habits Greg indulged in—the deep furrow of his brow, the slight thinning of his lips, his fingers idly tracing the scar.

Tony captured Greg in check a couple of times, but the traps were too loose, and Greg was equally comfortable between playing the long game and brute force tactics. Chess was something Tony would readily concede as more of Greg’s milieu, and that was one of reasons Tony had suggested it. Even in spite of that, it occurred to Tony around the time Greg used his queen to take Tony’s remaining bishop that he still should’ve paid more attention to the game.

Seven moves later, and Greg’s long, tapered fingers travelled across the board to move his rook. A pause as Tony surveyed the mostly empty board, before he sighed, and upended his own king.

“You were distracted,” said Greg after a pause.

Tony shrugged. “I played my best,” he said honestly.

Greg scoffed. “Hardly.”

“I’m surprised by how much faith you have in my abilities, brother.” The chair made a scraping noise as Tony stood up and made his way around the table in front of Greg. He leaned down and draped his arms around Greg’s shoulders, brought his knee up on the chair beside Greg's leg. “I would think that you’d take this opportunity to hold your victory over me.”

Greg put his hand to Tony’s waist, and his thumb brushed over the exposed skin where his shirt had ridden up. His other hand he brought up to wrap around the back of Tony’s neck, pulling his face down. “What makes you think I won’t?” Greg asked against Tony’s mouth.

Whatever answer Tony might’ve had was lost in the warmth of his brother’s mouth, but Tony found that he wasn’t too bothered by it.

Tony was careful to let Greg win sometimes.

*

_There is one final story, possibly the oldest one. The older brother kills the younger in jealousy, crushes his head with a rock and buries him in the dirt, the first murder in all of human history. As a result, the older brother is exiled from their father's land, destined to wander forever, without purpose._

_(That last stipulation is less a condition of divine punishment than the unavoidable consequence of his own actions, because Cain can never be anything without Abel.)_

_Tony's never liked this story—biblical allegories aren't his thing, and Greg wouldn't know the concept of repentance if it punched him in the face._

*

Weeks passed, and they played a lot of chess. A lot of the times the games ended with sex, regardless of who won—and contrary to how their first game went, Tony won his fair share of matches. Regardless of what Greg would otherwise insist, Tony was his intellectual equal and even if chess was less his style, he had always prided himself on his adaptability. That Greg won a little over than slightly half of their matches was something Tony could chalk up to the fact that Greg always took white. He didn’t mind, really. What did it hurt to indulge his older brother’s vanity a little?

(Probably a lot of things.)

Sometimes, though, Tony wondered if he shouldn’t just let Greg win all the time regardless, because he was always far more irritable when he lost. Tony ultimately settled on contemplating how much worse Greg would be if he thought Tony was throwing the games.

Tony was on his knees, hands braced on the couch as Greg fucked him from behind, his thrusts deep and brutal. They’d just finished a match, Tony’s first loss after a streak of victories, and no sooner had Tony turned over his king that Greg grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him to the sofa. His fingers dug bruises into Tony’s waist, and his breathing was harsh and shallow on the back of Tony’s neck.

Like Tony said, he didn’t mind.

They didn’t always fuck. Sometimes their match would be over and they’d leave each other to whatever they’d been doing. Sometimes Greg would push Tony to kneel in front of him, right there at the chess table, one hand buried in his hair as Tony took his cock in his mouth. A hand twisted in his hair, clutching tightly as Tony curled his lips around the head, and made a gagging noise when Greg thrust up and hit the back of his throat, so sudden that his eyes welled up and he could barely breathe.

Tony glared up as he stretched his jaw. Greg only smirked at him, showing his teeth, and tightened his grip in Tony’s sweat-slick hair.

“Very good, _darling_ ,” Greg said, his voice curling around the words like smoke, and with just as much affection. “You take it so well.”

He hissed when Tony let a hint of teeth graze the underside of his cock, and a few thrusts had him coming in long hot spurts. Tony didn’t let Greg catch his breath before he leaned up to kiss him, forcing the come into Greg's mouth with his tongue, over angry moans of protest. Tony smiled against Greg's lips, as Greg wrung his hands painfully in Tony's hair.

So yeah, Tony won his fair share of matches.

*

There were nights when Greg shared his bed to sleep, instead of leaving as he usually did when they were done fucking. It was incredibly reckless, even with the nanites to keep him in check, but there were nights when Greg’s body collapsed besides his, pliant and sated, his arm thrown across Tony’s chest.

There were bright white scars, running in neat, parallel lines across the length of Greg’s forearms, where he must’ve tried to bleed the nanites out despite Tony’s warning. Tony ran light fingertips over the white lines on his brother’s arms, and over the pale red scar on his brother’s face.

Tony should make him leave, and he could, with a simple command. A small line of code sent to the nanites.

Instead, he turned around and leaned back against Greg, his back to Greg’s chest, and Tony didn’t know if he was just imagining the tempo of a heartbeat in synch with his.

*

It's a pattern, Tony noticed. They played chess and Tony continued to fly around in his flying metal pajamas of death in a vain attempt to save the world, and nearly got lobotomised for it. Montevideo was nuked using StarkTech. Reed Richards’ city had eaten most of northern Europe. The global market was in total cascading collapse.

In the face of this catastrophic death and decay, a world hanging by a thread, Stark Industries’ losses were in the ballpark of a couple hundred million dollars, which was more than offset by his share in the Kratos Club’s hedge fund.

Up nearly nine billion and counting.

Death, so much death, and he was richer than ever. Tony sometimes wished the cancer had killed him when it was supposed to.

Tony felt weary, as though his edges were frayed, as though he didn’t have enough charge to keep going. But he knew that it was all in his head; the nanites in his blood were pizoelectrically powered—all he had to do was keep breathing for them to recharge.

All he had to do was keep breathing.

Greg was sitting on the couch when he came in, reading glasses on his face and a battered paperback on his hand. He took one look at Tony’s well-dressed attire and haggard expression, before he spoke, “How are the lovely men and women of the Kratos Club lately?”

Tony looked at Greg for a moment, before he loosened his tie, and sprawled on the chair he sat in during their chess matches. The board was all set up, the pieces fixed in place. He’d had the foresight to grab a drink before he went in the main living area, and he held the scotch glass in his fingertips, swirling the brown liquid within before downing it in one swallow. He cleared his throat through the burn, before he replied.

“Contessa de Fontaine sends her regards. But what do you care? Your membership’s been revoked.”

“Temporarily suspended. They won’t risk permanently alienating anyone who was powerful enough to join in the first place.”

“Maybe you should dye your hair and meet with them in my place next time, if you’re so keen on rubbing elbows with the rich and ridiculously morally deficient?” Tony tried to go for ‘snide and sarcastic’, but missed the mark by a mile and ended up on ‘bitter and angry’. Perfect. Greg’s timing, as always, was impeccable.

Greg rolled his one open eye and turned a page. “Oh, drop the righteous anger, little brother. It’s quite nauseating.”

The glass didn’t break in his grip, but it was a close thing.

“I’m sorry if the deaths of hundreds of thousands, using _my_ technology, bothers me somewhat.”

“Collectively, the Kratos Club owns nine percent of the world’s assets. But it’s always like this with you, isn’t it?” Greg’s face was turned down on his book, but there was a tight set to his jaw that told Tony he wasn’t paying any attention to Dostoevsky. “More power for you to waste and squander.”

The glass fell out of Tony’s limp hands and shattered on the floor with a sharp, crystalline noise. Tony’s eyes were wide with anger and disbelief, and maybe it was the fact that amidst the bustle of everything he’d barely slept more than seven hours in the entirety of the past week, but he was unable to put up even the most meagre of his usual defenses against Greg’s callousness.

He was too open, too vulnerable, and Greg was going to notice.

There was the sound of a book closing with a snap. Greg set the book on the table, and rested his reading glasses on top of it before he made his way behind Tony. He rested his hands on Tony’s shoulders, wrapping loosely around his neck, and Tony was struck with a sudden compulsion to shake them off. It was then replaced by a vague surprise at how he could still sometimes have a healthy and normal response to things.

Greg leaned down behind him, tucking a lock of hair behind the shell of his ear. “That’s always been your problem, little brother. You never knew how to keep your distance.”

“If the alternative is to be unaffected by all this—” Tony tried to get in edgewise, but was distracted by the mouth tracing his carotid, warm and full of teeth.

Greg pulled back his collar and sucked a bruise onto the juncture of his neck and jawline, before he spoke again. “You charge in too fast and impale yourself on your opponent’s sword.”

Tony grabbed the white king off the table, and held it up to eye level, where it gleamed against the light. “You’re going for fencing metaphors when there’s a chessboard right in front of us?”

That brought Greg to a halt, and Tony felt his grimace against his skin. “Crude, heavy-handed sabreur.”

Tony let the king fall to floor where it broke in two, white marble amidst the jagged shards of the scotch glass. It was the nanites that tipped Tony off, Greg’s pulse and elevated heartbeat incongruent with the cool facade he projected.

The shard of glass dug into side of Tony’s neck, drawing out a thin trickle of blood, flowing around the contour of his clavicle, but Greg himself was frozen in place.

“All it took was a simple thought, Greg. All I had to do was think for you to stop.” Tony brushed his brother’s hand away from his neck, stood up, and straightened the collar of his shirt. It was hardly unexpected—appeasement was only going to last for so long. He took the glass from Greg’s hand and set it on the table, before sending the release function.

Greg regained movement with a breathless gasp, and stumbled to his knees back towards the couch. His hand clutched as his chest, fingertips digging into the area over his heart.

“What was the plan, darling? Cut my throat while you distracted me, maybe I would have lost enough of my nanites in the arterial spray to be incapable of sending any commands?” Tony stalked forwards to where Greg was curled in a heap beside the sofa, and kneeled in front of him.

“What did you do to me?” Greg asked, his voice trembling with anger and something else that was uncannily like fear.

“I sent a command to the nanites around your cardiac muscles to manually slow down your heart.”

“You arrogant little _shit_ —”

“I guess I should congratulate you for lasting as long as you did without trying to kill me.”

“How long was the chess supposed to keep me entertained?” Greg spat. “Why are we playing this game, Tony?”

“The last people I put nanites in were Natasha Romanova and Justine Hammer,” said Tony. “It’s a pattern. I stick nanites in people I care about and then they end up dead. Nearly happened with Banner too, though I guess he was safe, since I never slept with him and he wasn’t a redhead.”

“And me, Tony? Just one of two enough to keep me safe?”

Tony’s expression was serious as he brought his arm forward and splayed his fingers on the hand Greg had over his heart. There was no trace of malice in the gesture, no threat—just a simple statement of fact of what Tony could do, just by thinking it.

What Tony could never figure out was which of the two of them was more frightened by that implication.

“I’ll keep you safe.”

Confusion and anger warred on Greg’s face. "Is that it? You’re keeping me here to lord it over me that you've won?" Greg asked, anger laced with uncertainty.

“You just don't get it at all, do you?" Tony replied, a small, mirthless smile on his face.

It was just a small pause, in which Tony could pinpoint the precise moment in which Greg might have truly understood. He looked directly at Tony’s face, his expression crestfallen, before his mouth twisted in an ugly snarl. Greg pulled his hand away and grabbed Tony by the shoulders, pushing his weight forward until Tony was on his back with Greg an arm’s length above him, his knees straddling Tony’s waist.

"I know you can make me kneel." Greg curled his hands around Tony's wrists, pinning both of them to the floor besides Tony's head. "Make me beg. Hurt me. You know I would if our positions were reversed."

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Greg had been reasoning his way to an answer by asking what he’d demand of Tony in victory, and came up with subjugation. A trophy. He didn’t understand that this was a game with no winners or losers.

Greg didn't know how to comprehend _love_ , because whatever love he felt for his little brother was too entwined with hatred and anger and jealousy. Love was tinged with leverage was tinged with manipulation was tinged with spite, so Tony's motivations could not possibly make sense to him.

Jealousy ate at nothing but its own heart, they said, but Tony could attest that that was bullshit.

"I have complete control over every one of your actions. I can tell the nanites to constrict your throat muscles, or fire random synapses in your brain. I can tell your lungs to stop breathing, pause the ventricles in your heart. I can make you feel pain." Tony paused. “I can make you feel good.”

Greg brushed his thumbs over the pulse points on Tony’s wrists, his grip vise-tight. "So this must mean you don't want me to stop."

“If you want it to,” Tony said, his voice without inflection.

Greg tightened his fingers around his wrists, and brought his face down against Tony’s as he snarled. "You can't keep me here like this forever.”

 _Yes, I can_ , Tony thought.

Tony looked blankly up at his twin brother. The scar over Greg’s right eye was dull red, and the band around his neck was a deep, inscrutable black. "Why not?"

Because Tony could, and that was what he needed Greg to understand. Tony could keep Greg with him forever. Tony would.

Tony leaned forward and took Greg’s mouth in a kiss. (Tony closed his eyes and let gravity take, a long, long fall, with his brother in his arms.)

This was a trap for both of them.


End file.
